Many DPS readers have requested more and more information about GIMP (sometimes referred to as The Gimp) photo editing software. As a freely licensed bit of photography software, the high interest is understandable. Before diving into some specific GIMP tips and tricks in future posts, I’d like to help bring those up to speed who may, after reading this far, still be thoroughly confused about what exactly I’m talking about. What this introduction will not be is a comparison between Photoshop and GIMP, but merely a stand alone introduction to the software you may find useful.

GIMP is a an attempt at answering the call for freely distributed image editing software. While Photoshop is widely regarded as the industry standard for all kinds of image manipulation, it’s costly and overblown for the average photographers use (ok, so I let in a *little* comparison). Yes, Photoshop has a ton of useful tools, support and plugins available, but it was never available for Linux operating system users until the introduction of Wine. And it was those users of Linux who initially requested something to run on their operating system to manipulate photographs.

GIMP’s history, ancient history and prehistorycan all be read on the official Gimp website, so I won’t get deep into where it came from. It’s now available for Linux, FreeBSD, MacOSX and Windows operating system. Not only that, but it’s lightweight enough to fit on a USB jumpdrive via PortableApps.GIMP’s program elements, or dialogs, can float anywhere on the screen. This gives the freedom to position, resize and customize the feel depending on the task at hand. The screen shot above (click to enlarge) shows some of the dialogs all spaced out on a desktop. You will notice there are two larger columns to the left and right of the main image, these are the docks. If you perfer to have your dialogs tabbed, they can be placed in the docks to help clear things up. Each dock comes with two panels each and the dialogs can be moved and arranged with drag and drop simplicity. A list of the available tabs/dialogs is always at hand in each of the docks (pictured at right).

GIMP has many useful photo editing tools such as the ability to make quick crops, rotation, and color adjustments. It also has more finite controls like curves, hue, saturation, channel mixing, layers, masking, sharpening, clone, heal and levels. It can handle a wide range of file types including JPEG, TIFF, PSD (Photoshops native file format), GIF and more. The program is also highly extendable and has a huge library of freely available plug-ins listed on the site.

To get started, you will first need to download GIMP depending on your computer operating system. The download page can be found here. After the download and install process starting GIMP will bring up the main image window and the docks previously mentioned. If you are familiar with Windows or the general concept of windowed programs is familiar to you, GIMP may seem a bit odd at first, the way it just falls onto your screen without any kind of background to anchor it all together. Depending on what you have going on, you may need to reduce the other programs on your computer to get a clear view.

Opening an image is as simple as clicking on File and then Open, then selecting the file you wish to edit. You may also drag an image into the main window in GIMP or to the Dock in MacOSX to open it. This includes images from a website or other program. Now it’s time to start playing!! First, take a look at the Toolbox pictured here at right. This is one of the main dialogs you’ll want to keep handy. For a quick run down of the buttons, left to right, top to bottom:

Rectangle Select Tool – Select a rectangular region

Elipse Select Tool – Select circular regions

Free Select Tool – Lets you draw around objects

Fuzzy Select Tool – Selects areas based on like colors

Select By Color – Pick a color, any color!

Scissor Select Tool – Select using intelligent edge selection

Foreground Selection Tool – The name says it all

Paths Tool – Create and Edit Paths

Color Picker – Set the color (those big black and white rectangles at the bottom of the toolbox) by picking from the image

Zoom Tool

Measure Tool – Cool for finding exact pixel distance

Move Tool – Use this after a select tool to move image areas

Alignment Tool – Align various layers with ease

Crop Tool – Super handy and easy to use cropping

Rotate Tool – Rotate a layer by exact degree or freehand

Scale Tool – Make things bigger or smaller by percentage

Sheer Tool – Adjust image for perspective on the sides

Perspective Tool – Adjust front to back perspective, or keystoning

Flip Tool – Make left be right

Text Tool – Add some words any way you like

Bucket Fill – Use this after a select tool to fill a selection with a given color

Blend Tool – Fill with a gradient

Pencil Tool – Painting using a hard edge brush

Paintbrush Tool – More smooth than the pencil, just like real life!

Eraser Tool – Remove areas using a brush

Airbrush Tool – Just like the real thing, with less mess

Ink Tool – Another way of brushing with more of a pen effect

Clone Tool – Pick an area and duplicate it where ever you like! Good for remove dust spots/blemishes

Healing Tool – Heals blemishes by synthesising what should be there

Perspective Clone Tool – Two tools in one!!

Blur/Sharpen Tool – Use a brush to blur or sharpen select areas

Smudge Tool – Just like using your finger to smudge paint

Dodge/Burn Tool – Brighten and darken select areas, same as in the old lightroom

Foreground/Background Colors – This is where you set colors for many tasks

Whew!! That’s a lot and it’s just one toolbox! In future posts we’ll dive more into what some of these tools can do, but for now it’s time for you to experiment! Find a photo you’ve been meaning to crop, highlight or clean up and see just how easy the program can be to use. Once edits are done, saving the file is the same as any other program in your operating system. Plus GIMP also has a large selection of file types to “Save As…” if you need to make that PSD a JPEG.

If you’ve never tried GIMP before and are looking for a good, free, powerful piece of photo editing software, it’s worth a look. I’m not saying there aren’t other options out there, but if you’re looking to grow into a tool with a lot of advanced features, GIMP is worth your time. Look for new GIMP tips, tricks and tutuorials coming to DPS soon!

Here is the a link to the most talented photographer I know, 1 of my Flickr contacts, Rosie Hardy… and she only uses GIMP. She’s been published a few times and on the covers of books and magazines too:

I’ve used GIMP for years running in Linux. Your intro to GIMP is excellent and I look forward to reading anthing else you write about GIMP. GIMP has considerable power and I’m not sure I’ll ever learn all of it.

Pernille Winton

SO thankful you are taking up this subject!! I downloaded Gimp a year ago, but did not have the slightest idea what all the different features and tools was, being a Picasa user, and gave up on using it.
So I erased it and felt stupid : ) But now I see light at the end of the tunnel, and will download it right away and use your support to get me started – I´m really exited about this as I have all sorts of wild ideas of what to do with my shots 😀
DPS is my favourite website to learn from, I recommend you all the time, THANK YOU!

R. Davids

I tried it quite some time ago. It immediately overwrote EVERY image (thousands) in my computer so that whatever image I opened, it opened in GIMP as opposed to the format in which it was saved. As a result, I couldn’t get rid of it quickly enough !!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you! So happy to see Gimp featured, and looking forward to Tips and tricks!

BC

Thanks! I just started using The Gimp! Glad to get help with uncovering its full potential!

emk

Thanks for the tutorial. I’ve been using the Gimp for simple edits for some years on Linux. I’d love to take it to the next level. Thanks again and absolutely looking forward to the next installments of your tutorial.

Thanks Peter for starting the series of tips on Gimp. I’m using Gimp on my windows machine where I don’t have access to Photoshop. I’m very happy with it. It’s really great free piece of software. It’s not so intuitive to use as Photoshop and works slower, but you don’t get the Ferrari for free either, right?

DPS, great site that it is, seemed to be missing the boat in the “Post Production” department by its lack of how-tos for Gimp users.

Looks like you are about to fix that.

Thank you, Peter.

GO GIMP

kosmo2076

I’ve worked on Linux for 4 years and GIMP was natural choose of photo editing software. In my opinion this is great software and there are a lot of add-ons for it. I’ve realized that many techniques describing in “photoshop language” can be translate into GIMP. I hope here we will be able to find a lot of usefull information about postproduction.

The second great opensource program is digiKam. This is wonefull photo mangment aplication with ratings, tag, makig slideshows, exporing galleries to flickr, gallery, flash etc. And what is wonderfull there is very easy to use photo editor (kipi plugins).

Tim

I have been using gimp for some time. In enjoy it and it does almost all that I need photoshop for. It is certainly worth a look as you may not need to spend the $$$ to get the editing you desire. There are a lot of awesome sites out there that provide tutorials on image editing. Check them out and don’t count out GNU or GPL software just because it doesn’t have a m@c or M$ tag.

r. davids, GIMP doesn’t go out there and change all your image files. From what you say, it sounds as if you managed to specify GIMP as the default application for opening files of image type (.jpg, .gif, etc.) when you installed it. Once you uninstalled GIMP — if you’re on a Windows machine — those defaults would’ve reverted to (presumably) Internet Explorer.

Mark

R. Davids Says:
July 3rd, 2009 at 3:35 am

I tried it quite some time ago. It immediately overwrote EVERY image (thousands) in my computer so that whatever image I opened, it opened in GIMP as opposed to the format in which it was saved. As a result, I couldn’t get rid of it quickly enough !!!

What you saw was a windows file type association which you can change yourself. It has nothing to do with the image files and The Gimp hasn’t touched a single one of them. Windows associates file types with applications to perform different tasks. It was this association that changed, nothing more, nothing less. You would normally see something in the installation procedure asking whether you wish to associate certain file types “with this application”.

nice overview; I’m really looking forward to this series. GIMP is my primary post-processor – I use in conjunction with RAWtherapee and have been impressed with the results.

R. Davids

Thanks for the heads up. Evidentally, I somehow specified Gimp as the default. Anyway, as soon as I deleted it, everything reverted to the saved formats – mostly, TIFF, PSD & JPEG. In any event, I’ll stick with Photoshop…

C H Mackie

About time some stuff on GIMP!!! awesome – the photoshop stuff while good just wasn’t relevant to me.

DSC-H50

i look forward to learning about gimp! i downloaded once before and gave up. not sure what everything is nor have i ever used any post editing software other than picasa, which is very user friendly. reading all the comments i am seriously thinking of giving it another try. i would like to know if u can add color in a blk and white with this progrm?

Wanted to try out gimp, but haven’t been able to successfully load it onto my iMac. Very frustrating. I’ve been following the instructions, just missing something I guess . . .

Karim

I have been using The GIMP since version 1.2! There is nothing that I have found that PS can do that I cannot do in the GIMP. Some things in PS are automated but I have found that even then, I rather the manual result (as often PS over/under corrects) so the lack of built-in automation is not a problem. For those for who it is, you can probably get a plug-in to make GIMP equally capable (or possibly better).

The only other software I liked (before Corel bought them from Jasc) was Paint Shop Pro (PSP). It was worth the money. I find that PS is a great product but it is overpriced even for all that it does. (I had used PS up to CS3 –along side The GIMP– at a marketing firm I worked at). I am glad to see a respectable Photography group giving it the attention it deserves.

Karim

Jillian

As an amateur photographer, I find that GIMP offers endless possibilities. It’s great even with larger photos and file sizes. I love it.

Gert

When will the series on Gimp start? I am an amateur at this, bought my first DSLR a few weeks ago. Am on a very steep learning curve, and would love to learn how to start using GIMP like a pro!

Some Older Comments

When will the series on Gimp start? I am an amateur at this, bought my first DSLR a few weeks ago. Am on a very steep learning curve, and would love to learn how to start using GIMP like a pro!

JillianAugust 30, 2009 01:37 pm

As an amateur photographer, I find that GIMP offers endless possibilities. It's great even with larger photos and file sizes. I love it.

KarimAugust 18, 2009 04:22 pm

I have been using The GIMP since version 1.2! There is nothing that I have found that PS can do that I cannot do in the GIMP. Some things in PS are automated but I have found that even then, I rather the manual result (as often PS over/under corrects) so the lack of built-in automation is not a problem. For those for who it is, you can probably get a plug-in to make GIMP equally capable (or possibly better).

The only other software I liked (before Corel bought them from Jasc) was Paint Shop Pro (PSP). It was worth the money. I find that PS is a great product but it is overpriced even for all that it does. (I had used PS up to CS3 --along side The GIMP-- at a marketing firm I worked at). I am glad to see a respectable Photography group giving it the attention it deserves.

Karim

Mary AnneAugust 18, 2009 06:47 am

Wanted to try out gimp, but haven't been able to successfully load it onto my iMac. Very frustrating. I've been following the instructions, just missing something I guess . . .

i look forward to learning about gimp! i downloaded once before and gave up. not sure what everything is nor have i ever used any post editing software other than picasa, which is very user friendly. reading all the comments i am seriously thinking of giving it another try. i would like to know if u can add color in a blk and white with this progrm?

C H MackieJuly 9, 2009 08:56 am

About time some stuff on GIMP!!! awesome - the photoshop stuff while good just wasn't relevant to me.

R. DavidsJuly 7, 2009 05:49 am

Thanks for the heads up. Evidentally, I somehow specified Gimp as the default. Anyway, as soon as I deleted it, everything reverted to the saved formats - mostly, TIFF, PSD & JPEG. In any event, I'll stick with Photoshop...

JedJuly 7, 2009 01:57 am

nice overview; I'm really looking forward to this series. GIMP is my primary post-processor - I use in conjunction with RAWtherapee and have been impressed with the results.

TomJuly 5, 2009 09:00 pm

It's about time, but better late than never!

Another great resource is the GIMP users group on Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/groups/gimpusers/

FredshomeJuly 5, 2009 07:51 pm

July 4th, 2009 at 2:35 pm

Photoshop WAS available on UNIX a Loooong time ago…
There also was a strange version for Irix that used MacOS widgets. Presumably some kind of emulated port.

MarkJuly 5, 2009 02:11 pm

R. Davids Says:
July 3rd, 2009 at 3:35 am

I tried it quite some time ago. It immediately overwrote EVERY image (thousands) in my computer so that whatever image I opened, it opened in GIMP as opposed to the format in which it was saved. As a result, I couldn’t get rid of it quickly enough !!!

What you saw was a windows file type association which you can change yourself. It has nothing to do with the image files and The Gimp hasn't touched a single one of them. Windows associates file types with applications to perform different tasks. It was this association that changed, nothing more, nothing less. You would normally see something in the installation procedure asking whether you wish to associate certain file types "with this application".

(Casual reader) MRJuly 5, 2009 12:48 am

r. davids, GIMP doesn't go out there and change all your image files. From what you say, it sounds as if you managed to specify GIMP as the default application for opening files of image type (.jpg, .gif, etc.) when you installed it. Once you uninstalled GIMP -- if you're on a Windows machine -- those defaults would've reverted to (presumably) Internet Explorer.

I have been using gimp for some time. In enjoy it and it does almost all that I need photoshop for. It is certainly worth a look as you may not need to spend the $$$ to get the editing you desire. There are a lot of awesome sites out there that provide tutorials on image editing. Check them out and don't count out GNU or GPL software just because it doesn't have a m@c or M$ tag.

kosmo2076July 4, 2009 08:01 am

I've worked on Linux for 4 years and GIMP was natural choose of photo editing software. In my opinion this is great software and there are a lot of add-ons for it. I've realized that many techniques describing in "photoshop language" can be translate into GIMP. I hope here we will be able to find a lot of usefull information about postproduction.

The second great opensource program is digiKam. This is wonefull photo mangment aplication with ratings, tag, makig slideshows, exporing galleries to flickr, gallery, flash etc. And what is wonderfull there is very easy to use photo editor (kipi plugins).

Ed BarnatJuly 4, 2009 07:55 am

DPS, great site that it is, seemed to be missing the boat in the "Post Production" department by its lack of how-tos for Gimp users.

Looks like you are about to fix that.

Thank you, Peter.

GO GIMP

PigonJuly 4, 2009 02:15 am

Thanks Peter for starting the series of tips on Gimp. I'm using Gimp on my windows machine where I don't have access to Photoshop. I'm very happy with it. It's really great free piece of software. It's not so intuitive to use as Photoshop and works slower, but you don't get the Ferrari for free either, right?

I use Gimp mostly for cropping, adjusting curves and sharpening of my images. Take a look here for recent example on how good these effects can be: http://www.flickr.com/photos/piotr_golebiowski/3640890094/

emkJuly 3, 2009 10:49 am

Thanks for the tutorial. I've been using the Gimp for simple edits for some years on Linux. I'd love to take it to the next level. Thanks again and absolutely looking forward to the next installments of your tutorial.

emk

BCJuly 3, 2009 09:07 am

Thanks! I just started using The Gimp! Glad to get help with uncovering its full potential!

JoranJuly 3, 2009 08:50 am

Thank you, thank you, thank you! So happy to see Gimp featured, and looking forward to Tips and tricks!

Ed w. MredJuly 3, 2009 08:09 am

Anxiously awaiting the series.

Thanks

R. DavidsJuly 3, 2009 03:35 am

I tried it quite some time ago. It immediately overwrote EVERY image (thousands) in my computer so that whatever image I opened, it opened in GIMP as opposed to the format in which it was saved. As a result, I couldn't get rid of it quickly enough !!!

Pernille WintonJuly 3, 2009 03:30 am

SO thankful you are taking up this subject!! I downloaded Gimp a year ago, but did not have the slightest idea what all the different features and tools was, being a Picasa user, and gave up on using it.
So I erased it and felt stupid : ) But now I see light at the end of the tunnel, and will download it right away and use your support to get me started - I´m really exited about this as I have all sorts of wild ideas of what to do with my shots :D
DPS is my favourite website to learn from, I recommend you all the time, THANK YOU!

George FragosJuly 3, 2009 03:06 am

I've used GIMP for years running in Linux. Your intro to GIMP is excellent and I look forward to reading anthing else you write about GIMP. GIMP has considerable power and I'm not sure I'll ever learn all of it.

Mary Ann MattoxJuly 3, 2009 02:55 am

Here is the a link to the most talented photographer I know, 1 of my Flickr contacts, Rosie Hardy... and she only uses GIMP. She's been published a few times and on the covers of books and magazines too:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rosie_hardy/

Tim CoffeyJuly 1, 2009 01:47 pm

Cool! Cool! Cool! Gimp rocks. Been using it for years!

DM|ZEJuly 1, 2009 11:48 am

This is a great start, I've known about the gimp for years now and tinkered with it from time to time. Now that I am running ubuntu full time it is the main editing tool that I use. It does have a bit of a learning curve so I look forward to future articles regarding this. Thanks!

douglasJuly 1, 2009 07:40 am

I have been using Gimp for a couple of years. Like most programs it takes a bit of work to start. There are lots of tutorials out there. I like Meet the gimp. The best book I find is "Beginning Gimp" byAjkkana Peck.
All in all it does every thing I want, and probably more!

wyaneJune 30, 2009 01:52 pm

Thanks for looking at the GIMP. As you suggest, the UI is a little tricky to get used to, particularly if you're a frequent alt-tabber. It's worth persevering as this is a great piece of software. Looking fwd to more gimp tips!

MattJune 30, 2009 01:35 am

Finally some love for the free stuff! I consider myself a semi-serious photographer and have had (cringe) less-than-legal copies of Photoshop in the past, but I have found that GIMP is a great completely legal alternative. All of the best features are there... curves, levels, fairly sophisticated filters, unsharp mask (couldn't live without it), etc... what a great application.

MarkJune 29, 2009 10:24 pm

For those that are interested there's also a modified package available called GimpShop which is a version of the GIMP altered to look and behave like Photoshop to make the transition even easier. Never used it myself but maybe worth a look.

ElizabethJune 28, 2009 04:28 am

I've been using GIMP for photo-manipulation and web design for about 2 years now, and absolutely love it. I just recently started using it for post-processing. However, I don't think it rates on quite the same scale as PS, having used both. I had no trouble figuring out how to use GIMP or PS, but I like PS better. The tools are better refined, have more options, and is geared more toward a professional designer. I've found the blending capabilities and text options to also be far superior in PS. However, this is not to say that GIMP doesn't work, as it does, and it is the best free editing software that I've come across. Particularly with a tablet, GIMP can work just as well as PS.

RickJune 28, 2009 03:53 am

I've been using GIMP for four years now. It has a fairly steep learning curve, but it's well worth the effort. GIMP works fabulously in ubuntu, and it even supports native PS brushes. The list of effective plugins seems to grow by the week. I use it exclusively for my photo editing! Kudos to DPS for creating a series on this. I hope that your readers are able to discover GIMP for themselves through your articles. I definitely look forward to reading more.

John FelkinsJune 28, 2009 12:05 am

I've tried playing with Gimp a few times but never really got over the hump. I like Picasa but want to learn to do more post production. Thanks for the series! Another program that might be of interest for batch processing is Phatch.

Richard BottJune 27, 2009 02:17 pm

I've been using GIMP for about three years, and appreciate it, greatly. (Not having used Photoshop in any of its incarnations, I didn't find it difficult to learn (The) GIMP. My friends who have tried to switch over have found more difficulties.)

About the 16-bit thing - on the Linux 2.6 version (and perhaps on the Windows, too, I don't know) - there are the beginnings of 16-bit implementation using GEGL. At the moment, this is more along the lines of 'beta' or 'play with it', but I'm hopeful we'll see full implementation in 2.8. (please.... please!!!)

Peace - rb

Erle PereiraJune 27, 2009 01:45 pm

Great Post.
Hope you continue to post on related stuff. Gimp is an incredible piece of work, I've the pleasure of seeing it being used by some real professionals who knew the tool.

JonathanJune 27, 2009 11:52 am

I'll chime in with the others thanking you for starting to write about Gimp. Good work! Looking forward to future articles!

BrandonJune 27, 2009 09:57 am

I have been using GIMP for about a year and love it. Thanks for the info, I hope we can get more people involved and possible some good photo tutorials. I have a link that has good resources. She does an awsome job on actions ie. plugins

http://clairejones.deviantart.com/gallery/#GIMP-Resources

Melvin McDowellJune 27, 2009 07:49 am

Looking forward to future installments

mellenJune 27, 2009 06:10 am

Yay! Thanks. I use GIMP and have a lot to learn. Looking forward to future posts.

Mike KrumlaufJune 27, 2009 04:15 am

Thanks for starting these tutorials! I've been using GIMP for about 3 months now and learning piece by piece so far. I'm looking forward to all your great tips on editing pictures to keep my websites fresh!

DennisJune 27, 2009 03:39 am

Oh, it looks like Clone tool and Healing tool would probably do the job. I read right over them in the list above.

Could someone who has experience with these tools post a description and comparison, or could DPS use this as a topic for a future article?

Thanks.

DennisJune 27, 2009 03:21 am

I particularly like the idea of portable software that does not require registry installation under Windoze.

Does anyone know if GIMP has a tool with a similar function to the PS 'Healing Brush' for correcting blemishes?

MikeJune 27, 2009 01:43 am

Thank you so much for writing this tutorial! I am doing what I can to break free of Microsoft. As you mentioned, a big problem is the photo editing. Although I have looked at GIMP, this tutoial will help greatly!

PeterJune 27, 2009 12:47 am

I have to say that the article on the gimp itself is very informative, and helpful. But also all the comments from the contributors before me are excellent and appreciated. GIMP is a very nice tool, and in some ways more user friendly than PSE...thank you DPS

Raval SeojattanJune 27, 2009 12:11 am

Thank you.

regards,
GIMP user

RobertJune 26, 2009 11:37 pm

Cool, this will be a great series to learn how to Gimp. I've used it in the past but no where near its potential. Too bad it doesn't do 16 bit though. :(

Thanks for the great topic.

Kasi ViswanathJune 26, 2009 11:31 pm

Thank You very much for getting us started on Gimp! I am eagerly looking forward for your further posts on Gimp!

JennyJune 26, 2009 11:14 pm

I have been using GIMP for a while now and am delighted with it and with all the add-ons you can have fun 'playing' with your images or with more serious post-production adjustments.

I also use another 'free' tool called faststone (www.faststone.org) to view my images before opening them with Gimp ( it also has some very useful editing tools). It acts like bridge, allowing you to view, rename, move ... your images and it works for many image types including raw and then lets you edit it them with the selected external package of your choice. - the two work very well together.

UFRaw works brilliantly as a RAW-format import.

Any and all tutorials for GIMP will be much appreciated
Thanks for all your hard work.

Bruce SimmonsJune 26, 2009 11:12 pm

How do I say this? Thank you, thank you thank you!! Ever since ACDSee has been screwing me over with their bloated purchasing processes and then crashing software that they can't seem to find the time to answer my questions about, I've been desperately searching for a viable alternative.

There are some good ones out there like PhotoScape or InfranView, but I need power to put some punch into the process. That and a decent screenshot utility!

I've downloaded and installed GIMP, but dang, it's like looking at the cockpit of an airliner! All those knobs and buttons and which the heck one to use first!

This will be refreshing to be able to learn about the software I've had on my system for over a year now!

Did I say thank you?

THANK YOU.

ChristianJune 26, 2009 06:22 pm

I have been using GIMP for MAC for awhile and find it to excellent and a close second to Photoshop. Does anyone know where I can find information about converting GIMP RAW to a jpeg?

If you are referring to importing image files in RAW-format into GIMP try out UFRAW.

MichaelJune 26, 2009 06:01 pm

That should have been 'Meet the Gimp'. Messed up the html code, but the link is good

I found this site http://meetthegimp.org/ a couple of weeks ago, the "get all videos" page is a good place to start.

OliverJune 26, 2009 05:14 pm

Only one important feature is not implemented.

Gimp does not support 16Bit.

Oliver

MeiTengJune 26, 2009 04:11 pm

I heard about GIMP just recently and have been meaning to find out more about this free photo editing software. Thanks for the introduction. I may download and check this out myself. I am currently using Canon's photo editing software as well as Picasa.

excogitatorJune 26, 2009 03:44 pm

This will be great series, i am using GIMP for photoediting but its limited to basic operations like cropping scaling and level adjustment. Need to learn lot more.

By the way, GIMP is NOT open source software, its GNU or Free Software. By calling it open source we are missing the point http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html.

BinuJune 26, 2009 02:22 pm

Great.. really helpful for linux users now we can avoide the using of other illegal softwares. Thanks....!!!

AbhilashJune 26, 2009 02:14 pm

Its always nice to see a forum like DPS give importance to a tool like GIMP. If the open source community did it, they would probably be shot down for boasting and starting the age old GIMP vs PS fight all over again.

I have always used GIMP. Its installed on both my linux and my windows machines.

suzanneJune 26, 2009 01:49 pm

I like Gimp (especially the price, heh heh) but wish it were easier to install/organize brushes. Aside from that, from what I've seen so far, it's a great alternative to photoshop. For Gimp newbies, Photoshop ain't exactly intuitive, either!

JimmieJune 26, 2009 12:32 pm

I am thrilled to see you talking about Gimp here at DPS! I use it, but I'd sure love to learn more! PS is just too expensive for a hobby photographer like me. Can't wait to see more tutorials!

AlejandroJune 26, 2009 12:11 pm

I've written a few GIMP tutorials in Spanish for my blog. It's a really neat piece of software. A big bonus about GIMP is that it runs on older computers which wouldn't be able to run the latest Photoshop (I'm currently running the latest GIMP on a 2003 computer, and it has more editing power than I'll ever be able to master).

DimitriJune 26, 2009 11:48 am

I am SO glad to see the GIMP being covered here. For so long, I felt like a second class citizen as I use GIMP for ALL my post processing. It's a very capable program, and I'm happy it will be discussed here!

Benjamin SolahJune 26, 2009 11:47 am

I'm very impressed with GIMP. I just discovered it a few weeks ago and already designed an awesome header for my new blog design.

ITWOPJune 26, 2009 11:13 am

I've been using GIMP for about two years and it has dramatically improved my results. Going from Picasa/Picnik/etc to GIMP is like going from a cell phone camera to a DSLR. Be sure to get the UFRaw add-on in order to process RAW files.

VicJune 26, 2009 10:50 am

Fantastic subject. I'm really looking forward to this series.

LenslickerJune 26, 2009 09:52 am

I'm a big fan of the gimp, though I do remember how confusing it was when I was learning to use it. I look forward to seeing more posts on it!

HamHockJune 26, 2009 08:14 am

GIMP is fantastic! I highly recommend it to anyone who considers themselves an amateur photographer or beyond. I would never use anything else for image editing, unless I was forced to in the workplace. The fact that it's free makes it even more incredible.

JorgeJune 26, 2009 08:12 am

I nice book about GIMP is GIMP 2 for Photographers. It covers the photographic uses of GIMP and not the "graphic desing" uses

shaneJune 26, 2009 07:26 am

Woot! Open source!

It is always nice to see (non-Adobe) software being recognized. Just making the switch from Windows to Linux (Ubuntu 9.04) and have been using Gimp (Windows version) for some time to help the switch be smoother. Like they said, Photoshop/Lightroom/etc do not have Linux versions.

I'm just starting out in photography and I only use a fraction of Gimp's potential, I know Lightroom, etc would be wasted on me so far. More powerful than Picasa, more than good enough now.

Phil LincolnJune 26, 2009 07:20 am

I have been using GIMP for MAC for awhile and find it to excellent and a close second to Photoshop. Does anyone know where I can find information about converting GIMP RAW to a jpeg?

AmandaJune 26, 2009 07:11 am

It's about time! I use GIMP for 100% of my photo editing needs and LOVE it. I love the layout, the effects, the tools, and especially the price!

I put a recommendation on my blog that people read this post. I am so excited that you all are starting something on this great program!! I have been using it for three years, and I am now a professional photographer and I am currently using it just a little longer (I am dreading the change to photoshop).